1881 in the United States

Events of 1881

January–March

• January 25 – Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell form the Oriental Telephone Company.
• February 2 – The Parkfield Earthquake occurs.
• February 5 – Phoenix, Arizona is incorporated.
• February 19 – Kansas becomes the first U.S. state to prohibit all alcoholic beverages.
• March 4 – Inauguration of James A. Garfield as President of the United States.

April–June

• April 11 – Spelman College is established.
• April 14 – The Four Dead in Five Seconds Gunfight erupts in El Paso, Texas.
• April 21 – The University of Connecticut is founded as the Storrs Agricultural School.
• April 28 – Billy the Kid escapes from his 2 jailers at the Lincoln County Jail in Mesilla, New Mexico, killing James Bell and Robert Ollinger before stealing a horse and riding out of town.
• May 12 – In North Africa, Tunisia becomes a French protectorate.
• May 21 – The American Red Cross is established by Clara Barton.
• May 21 – The United States Tennis Association is established by a small group of tennis club members.
• June 12 – The USS Jeannette is crushed in an Arctic Ocean ice pack.

July–September

• July 2 – James Garfield, President of the United States, is shot by lawyer Charles Julius Guiteau. He survives the shooting but suffers from infection of his wound, dying on September 19.
• July 4 – In Alabama, the Tuskegee Institute opens.
• July 14 – Billy the Kid is shot and killed by Pat Garrett outside Fort Sumner.
• July 20 – Indian Wars: Sioux chief Sitting Bull leads the last of his fugitive people in surrender to United States troops at Fort Buford in Montana.
• August 27 – The fifth hurricane of the Atlantic season hits Florida and the Carolinas, killing about 700.
• September 5 – The Thumb Fire in the U.S. state of Michigan destroys over a million acres (4,000 km²) and kills 282 people.
• September 12 – Francis Howell High School (Howell Institute) in St. Charles, Missouri, and Stephen F. Austin High School in Austin, Texas open on the same day, putting them in a tie for the title of the oldest public high school west of the Mississippi River.
• September 19 – U.S. President James A. Garfield dies eleven weeks after being shot. Vice President Chester A. Arthur becomes the 21st President of the United States.

October–December

• October 5 to December 31 – International Cotton Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia
• October 26 – The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral occurs in Tombstone, Cochise County, Arizona, USA.
• October 29 – Judge (U.S. magazine) is first published.
• November 11 – The Clarkson Memorial in Wisbech is completed and unveiled to the public.
• December 28 – Virgil Earp is ambushed in Tombstone and loses the use of his left arm.

Undated

• Kinshasa is founded by Henry Morton Stanley as a trading outpost called Léopoldville.
• New York City's oldest independent school for girls, the Convent of the Sacred Heart New York (91st Street), is founded.
• The Pali Text Society is founded.
• The United States National Lawn Tennis Association (USNLTA) is founded, and the first U.S. Tennis Championships are played.
• The League of the Three Emperors is resurrected.
• Abilene, Texas is founded.
• Minto, North Dakota is founded.